lightly purplish hue of a mottled character, which, at the time, I thought to have been caused by the introduction of a grooved needle into it; but since I have ascertained that this is a frequent appearance presented by myloid tumors. The microscope revealed the existence of the characteristic many-nucleated corpuscles. --Dublin Medical Press.

4. Laceration of Foot. - Tetanus. -Recovery, after removal of a Splinter of Bone. By C. F. BROADBENT, Esq., Surgeon to the Lincoln County Hospital.

W. C., aged 32, was admitted at midnight on June 13th, 1863, under the care of Mr. Broadbent. About an hour previously to his admission his right foot was injured, being run over by the wheel of a traction-engine. The foot was severely crushed; a large flap of integument on the dorsum of the foot was torn up, exposing the metatarsal bone of the great toe, which was fractured. The other metatarsal bones were not fractured. The sole of the foot was also severely lacerated, and felt pulpy and disorganized. A moderate amount of blood had been lost; and there was still some hemorrhage, which appeared to come mostly from the sole of the foot. The heel and ankle-joint were not injured. The limb was dressed with wet lint; and a sedative draught was given.

June 16th. On removing the dressings this morning the foot presented a sloughy appearance; the great toe was gangrenous. A consultation was called; and it was not thought advisable to interfere, as the vitality of the posterior part of the foot was good, and the man of strong constitution. The sloughy and disorganized portions were slit up with a bistoury, and a charcoal poultice was applied.

June 17th. The gangrene was not extending. A line of demarcation was apparently forming round the sole and dorsum of the foot.

June 29th. Since the last report, the gangrenous toe had separated; the fractured portion of metatarsal bone had been removed; the sloughs had all separated; and now the foot presented a healthy granulating surface; but on the previous night he complained of sorethroat, and this morning he could open his mouth only sufficiently wide to admit one finger. The muscles of the neck were very hard. He was ordered to have extract of cannabis Indica, beef-tea, and brandy. At 6 P. M. he was suddenly seized with great dyspnea and sense of suffocation; he could only breathe in the upright position, and was not altogether conscious.

July 2d. He had continued much in the same state; but the jaw was becoming faster every day, and now it was with much difficulty that any beef-tea or brandy could be administered. The wound looked healthy; and a small splinter of bone was projecting through the granulations. A few incisions were made, and the piece of bone (a portion of the metatarsal bone of the great toe) was removed.

July 5th. Since the removal of the bone the jaw had been gradually loosening; and he could now open his mouth, and eat and drink well.

From this date he gradually improved; the wound, under stimulating applications, gradually healed; and on October 10th he was discharged. British Medical Journal.

5. Case of Strangulated Hernia: treated by Inflation of the Bowels and by Shaking the Patient while in an Inverted Position. By RICHARD GRIFFIN, Esq., Weymouth.

CASE I. A short time since I visited, in consultation, a female, with symptoms of strangulated femoral hernia, which had existed for a couple of days. In consequence of several attempts at reduction, the hernia, about the size of a walnut, had become very painful, and there was some tenderness of the abdomen; vomiting was frequent, and there was no action of the bowels, although several large aperient doses and enemata had been administered. I procured a pair of bellows and passed the nozzle into the anus, an assistant holding the nates well together, so as to prevent, as much as possible, the escape of air from the bowels. The patient complained of the distension giving her pain; but the inflation was continued for about a quarter of an hour, much of the air escaping either through the bellows or by the side of the nozzle; but it was, apparently, of no benefit.

A fresh consultation was then held, when it was deemed advisable to recommend an operation. This, however, was postponed for a short time, but fortunately was not needed, In about an hour after inflation the bowels acted freely, and all symptoms of strangulation ceased; the distension having caused the forcible withdrawal of the strangulated knuckle of intestine which had prevented the peristaltic action of the bowels. The patient recovered.

CASE II. In another case, to which I was called in consultation, the old woman had stercoraceous vomiting for three or four days, with constipation. The hernia was femoral and irreducible. The bellows were used in this case, as in the last; and, although they appeared at the time to have been of no avail, yet, in about an hour, a free action of the bowels took place. Un Unfortunately, however, there was no stopping the diarrhea which ensued, arising from the drastic purgatives which had been administered; and the old lady died in forty-eight hours. The inflation, however, reduced the hernia; and so far was a

success.

CASE III. I was called in consultation to a man who had a strangulated inguinal hernia, which could not be reduced by the taxis. Purgatives and enemata had been freely administered during the preceding three days. I at once tried the bellows, which had not been used many minutes before the man called out, "You are blowing up my purse!" Such was, indeed, the fact; the scrotum having become largely distended with air, owing to a laceration in the rectum having been made with the pipe of the enema-syringe, which, I subsequently ascertained, had been so roughly used, that the man called out when the enema was being administered, and blood followed the withdrawal of the pipe. The bellows were removed, and the man immediately went to the night-stool; and a copious evacuation followed. I did not see the patient again; but I subsequently heard that he got well, and the air in the scrotum was soon absorbed.

CASE IV. A fourth case has been related in one of my poor-law pamphlets, in which a strangulated hernia was reduced by the bellows; the taxis, enemas, and purgatives having previously failed.

These cases prove that, before the operation for strangulated hernia is performed, it would be well to try the effects of inflation; although this, like everything else, is sometimes liable to fail, as the following cases will prove; superadded to which, shaking the patient whilst in the inverted position also failed.

CASE V. A man with scrotal hernia, to whom I was called in consultation, had all the usual remedies tried, including inflation of the bowels, but in vain. He was then hoisted with his knees over my medical friend's shoulders, and lifted in that position until only his head touched the bed, and had a thorough good shaking. The intestine, however, was too tightly held to be dragged from its position by this procedure; he was, therefore, obliged to submit to an operation, by which he was cured.

CASE VI. A lady, very stout, about 50 years of age, who had suffered for years with an irreducible umbilical hernia, for which she wore a supporting abdominal-belt, having one day used a little extra exertion, came home fatigued, and complained of pain in the bowels, followed by sickness and constipation. Enemata, salines in a state of effervescence, then opium, and finally purgatives, with inflation of the bowels, were tried, together with the taxis; but the hernia could not be reduced. A former medical attendant of the lady was then summoned from a distance; and, on his arrival, he suggested that shaking in the inverted position should be tried. Accordingly, the patient's knees were placed over his shoulders, with her legs hanging down his back, and, with the assistance of several persons present, he gradually raised himself into an upright position, the patient's head only touching the bed. He then gave her two or three good shakings, which did not occupy more than a minute or two; but, on looking at the patient's face, I discovered that breathing had ceased, and she was pulseless. We instantly placed her in the recumbent position; the window was thrown open; and a napkin, with the end dipped in water, was very freely applied to the face and chest, the slaps from it being anything but gentle. In a few minutes there was a slight sigh; and, after a short time, we had the pleasure of having our patient in no worse a state than before the attempt at reduction by shaking; but it was felt to be a painfully narrow escape by all present, and may serve as a warning, not to be disregarded by medical men, that they ought to be careful how they turn stout people topsyturvy. A medical gentleman from Bath was telegraphed for; but, in spite of the efforts of four surgeons, our patient gradually became worse, and died. As we were not permitted to have a post mortem examination, the precise cause of death was not ascertained.-British Medical Journal.

6. Forcible Dilatation in Painful Spasmodic Affections of the Urethra and Bladder.

Dr. Adolphe Richard, of Paris, has recently brought before the "Société de Médiciné de la Seine" this plan of treatment, which he has imagined, and considers somewhat empirical. He states that whenever neuralgia is not evident, the seat of pain must be looked for in the muscles, as in uterine colic, stone in the bladder, fissura in ano, etc., and it is produced by reflex action, originated in a manner not as yet well ascertained. Dr. Richard says, that forcible dilatation will cure the severe pain in spasmodic contraction of the neck of the bladder. He has successfully performed lithotomy, when there were violent pain and constant incontinence of urine, with increasing exhaustion of the subject, without any evidence, however, of stone in the bladder. He performed the operation with a perfect knowledge of this latter circumstance, expecting to improve the condition of the patient, who was immediately relieved and got completely well. Dr. Richard has likewise applied forcible dilatation to cure spermatorrhea. Looking upon this disease as frequently the hallucination of hypochondriac or nervous subjects, he only considers fit for his treatment those who are in the habit of experiencing a daily loss of semen. The plan has been tried in about twelve cases with a variable result, sometimes giving great relief, and in others producing a complete cure.

It is strange that Dr. Richard should call empirical the treatment he advocates, when it naturally suggests itself from what physiology proves to be the source of those reflex actions, which seem, to the French surgeon, not well known. Matteucci and Du Bois Reymond have demonstrated that a change in the galvanic state of the muscle, causing excitation of the nerve, is the cause of pain in the muscles, referred to by Richard. The first of these eminent physiologists states that a galvanic discharge and the muscular contraction always accompany each other; whilst the second thinks that a diminution takes place in the current of the muscle when it contracts; the electric change determining in either theories the irritation of the nerve and pain. In addition, Brown-Séquard proves that it is sufficient that a . muscle tend to contract, to produce galvanic excitation of the nerves. Hereupon it is easy to perceive how forcible dilatation, or tenotomy, is so effectual to make pain disappear after destroying the resistance of the muscles-the true efficient cause of the reflex actions producing it. Neither should Dr. Richard be considered as the first to apply this important physiological fact to the practice of surgery. Professor William H. Van Buren, of the University of this city, has insisted, in a very interesting paper read before the New York Academy of Medicine, on the advantages of forcible dilatation in the treatment of painful affections of the rectum. He is, perhaps, the first to demonstrate practically, and to bring forward, that such means is an important element of cure in many affections of the rectum; and that in all the cases it immediately removes the pain, being the simplest and most effectual remedy for fissure and irritative ulcer of the rectum: facts which perfectly agree with the rational and broader application of this treatment made by Richard, to the painful spasmodic affectious of the urethra and bladder.

EDITORIAL.

- WE perceive, from an advertisement in the New York Evening Post of March 21st, 1865, published by order of Maj. Gen. Gillmore, commanding the Department of the South, that one of the leaders of the conspiracy which resulted in the removal of Dr. William A. Hammond from the office of Surgeon General, has met with the retribution he so justly deserves. This individual, Silas H. Swetland, being at the time an agent for one of the States at Washington, importuned Dr. Hammond to give him the appointment of Inspector of Liquors for the Medical Department, alleging that the Medical Purveyors knew nothing about this part of their duty. His application was enforced by a document signed by several members of Congress.

Dr. Hammond refused to do so for the reasons that no such office was known to the law, and that a system was already in operation, by which all liquors purchased by orders from his office were examined chemically; and that as regarded the others, the Medical Purveyors were as competent to judge of the good quality of all their supplies as was Mr. Swetland.

Swetland then went to the Secretary of War with his complaints, and the next that is heard of him is as an agent of the infamous Reeder Commission, searching the hospitals for specimens of bad liquors and medicines. After he had performed what was expected of him in this capacity, he was appointed by Mr. Stanton a captain in the Commissary Department, and ordered to the Department of the South.

As was to have been anticipated, the man who perverted facts and fabricated falsehoods, to accomplish the downfall of an innocent person, has gone so far in his course of iniquity that he has at length destroyed himself. By virtue of special orders from the head-quarters of the District of Florida, he has been tried upon the charge of "Fraud," in support of which sixteen specifications were adduced, all alleging the appropriation of public supplies and funds to his own use. The sixteenth was dropped by the prosecution, but of the remaining fifteen specifications and of the charge he was found guilty. The following is the sentence of the court martial:

"And the court do therefore sentence him, Captain Silas H. Swetland, Commissary of Subsistence Volunteers, to be cashiered, with the loss of all pay and allowances now due, or to become due; to be fined ($5,000) five thousand dollars; to be imprisoned for one year in such prison or penitentiary as the proper authorities may direct; and the sentence to be published as provided in the 85th Article of War."

General Gillmore's orders in the case are as follows:

"The proceedings, findings, and sentence in the foregoing case having been approved by the officer appointing the court, and submitted to the Major General commanding the Department, the same are hereby approved and confirmed. Captain Swetland ceases to be an officer of the United States from the date of the publication of this order. He